


and the camera flashes (make it feel like a dream)

by ladililn



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Celebrity, F/M, One Shot, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 09:18:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5158454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladililn/pseuds/ladililn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amy Santiago is an Academy Award nominee. Jake Peralta's tux has four buttons, so she can't be held accountable for what happens next. (Sex. Sex happens.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the camera flashes (make it feel like a dream)

**Author's Note:**

> Things I should have spent the last couple days working on: the next chapter of my B99 HP AU [Operation Phonenix Feather](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5023402/chapters/11544877), my NaNoWriMo novel. What I worked on instead: this 100% unnecessary Hollywood AU PWP. At least, it was _meant_ to be PWP, but to be honest it ended up having just as much P as P. Whatever. Enjoy.
> 
> Title from Taylor Swift, natch.

When Amy’s high school guidance counselor told her she could never make a career out of acting, she took it as a challenge.

When her manager said it was getting harder and harder for TV actors to break into movies, she took it as a challenge.

And when her (now ex) boyfriend said she “shouldn’t get her hopes up” by even thinking about the possibility of award nominations, especially for having starred in a female-written and –directed festival film, she took it as a particularly personal challenge. (And as an excuse to dump him.)

So when Amy’s style team put her on a grueling exercise regimen, handed her a pair of heels that looked suspiciously like stilts, and insisted she trade in her favorite clutch for one that couldn’t hold more than two and a half tootsie rolls…she should have just given up and gone home.

Of course, that’s not an option. This is the _Oscars_ , and she’s _nominated_. Best Supporting Actress, which is a _huge_ deal, considering it’s her first film role (discounting, of course, the typically horrifying collection of roles she amassed in the awkward first few years of her career—low-budget horror flicks, Disney Channel Original Movies, straight-to-DVD sequels of moderately popular comedies that didn’t feature any of the original actors).

The fact that she has no chance in hell of winning her category is incidental. It’s an honor just to be nominated. It really is. ( _And against such incredible women_ , she thinks, because a small part of her is always rehearsing for what she’ll say to the press. Also, it’s true.) Amy’s agent is over the moon about the whole thing. Amy’s parents won’t stop telling random people they meet in line at the grocery store or in the dentist’s office waiting room that their one and only little girl is nominated for an Academy Award. And Amy herself, of course, is so grateful.

And yet—standing on the red carpet on the hottest day in February (thanks, LA), wearing ??-inch heels (her stylist refuses to tell her the measurements, which tells Amy all she needs to know), after spending the last four hours getting smoothed and brushed and contoured, after spending the past _six weeks_ subsisting mainly on a diet of kale juice and jogging (which her personal trainer tried and largely failed to convince Amy counts as a food)—she can’t help but wonder if it’s all really worth it. Maybe she should have listened to Ms. Guthrie and gone into a more practical line of business, like law enforcement.

“Just smile and wave,” Rosa whispers in her ear, which is actually _not_ what you’re supposed to do on a red carpet, and it’s coming from Rosa, so, you know. Layers of irony. (Rosa’s own red carpet technique is to glare down every fan, photographer, and fellow attendee, and so far it’s landed her on People’s Most Beautiful People list twice.)

It’s an important reminder nonetheless. Amy stands up a little straighter, smizes a little harder, and follows her publicist to her next posing spot. It’s already been forty-five minutes and she’s already done six mini-interviews and had her picture taken approximately a zillion times—half of those, to be fair, by people trying to get a shot of Angelina Jolie and finding Amy in the way—but as she rests her hand on her hip and angles herself just so, at least a zillion more flashbulbs go off, because to the media, enough is never enough.

“This way, beautiful!”

“Look over here, Amy! Amy! Amy! Look over here!”

“Gorgeous!”

“Lookin’ sexy! Give me a smile!”

“That’s a helluva dress. Look at me, hot stuff! Right at me!”

“Show us some leg!”

Even on the night of Amy’s greatest career triumph thus far, leave it to the paparazzi to bring her back down to earth. It only takes seconds for Amy to start feeling less like a woman who made a risky choice on a thigh-high slit and more like a slab of meat somebody stuck into a vividly red dress.

It’s not a surprise. Paparazzi don’t see a person standing in front of them: they see a magazine cover, a “Who wore it best?” spread, a walking dollar sign. Half of them don’t know her name and assume “Sexy” is a suitable substitute. And because she’s an actress, and a woman, they yell commands at her like she’s a monkey who can turn tricks. Well, maybe _turn tricks_ is the wrong terminology—isn’t that a euphemism for prostitution? Then again…

“Never forget that you are selling yourself on the red carpet,” Amy’s publicist once told her, bluntly, as is her wont. “To fans, to casting directors, to every media outlet that gets to decide whether you’re the next America’s Sweetheart or a diva-y bitch. You are the product. Make them want to buy you.”

So she can’t complain too much, because it’s not like she isn’t complicit in the process. She lets herself be turned into an object, she knows she does, because it’s easier this way. It’s better for her career. She drinks the kale smoothies, she steps into the heels, she looks where they tell her to look (some of them, anyway. She can’t look everywhere at once; she’s not a chameleon). And because nobody has ever accused Amy Santiago of not doing the research, she has thoroughly examined the red carpet techniques of every A-list actress of the last five decades. She has her posture and expression down to a literal science, complete with ideal degrees for various angles (45.5 for the spine, 3.5 for the head).

“Smile, beautiful!”

“Show me how you reacted when you found out you’d been nominated!”

“Amy! Over here, over here!”

“This way, sexy!”

“Looking great! Incredible!”

“Are you a Communist?”

For a split second, it occurs to Amy that this whole thing might just be another of her recurring Success Dreams, the ones where People Magazine includes her on their Most _Interesting_ People list and Scorsese wants to work with her and her tenth grade algebra teacher calls to let her know that he’s retroactively changing her B+ to an A. But she’s not holding a label maker. Which means that an actual paparazzo just asked her if she’s a Communist.

“Are you now, or have you ever been—” the same guy is saying, and it takes Amy a moment to find him against the blinding glare of camera flashes, but then, there he is. _He’s cute_ , is Amy’s first thought, which she immediately squashes, because what? No. That’s her _hasn’t gotten any since she dumped her asshole ex and now she’s “so thirsty that she could have the Niagara Falls of guys and it still wouldn’t satisfy her” (quoth Gina)_ talking.

(He is cute, though. Maybe not in a very Hollywood way, sure, but in an Amy Santiago way, which Kylie always assures her is a real and baffling thing.

“You have a thing for big noses, or, like, weird noses.”

“I do not.”

“Two of your last three boyfriends have had funny noses. Look at your celebrity crushes. Adrien Brody, Marlon Brando. You _do_ have a thing, and it’s weird.”

“I do _not_. And it’s called a Roman nose,” because Amy double majored in Theater and Art History, dammit, which means comparing Marlon Brando’s profile to ancient busts of Mark Antony is smack-dab in her wheelhouse.

Anyway. This guy is cute, and he definitely has A Nose, and Amy might owe Kylie an apology.)

“—of the Communist Party?” the guy says. And then he grins, raises his camera, and— _CLICK_ —gets a picture of her staring right at him.

So _that’s_ it. This guy just wants the same thing as the rest of them, but is apparently one of the few intelligent enough to realize that seventy people yelling _Look at me!_ at once isn’t likely to yield great results. So he came up with something inventive to yell to grab her attention—and she fell for it, hook line and sinker, and now he has a close range looking-directly-into-the-camera photo of her where she’s not even wearing one of her carefully researched Red Carpet Expressions. (She’s not so unprofessional to have dropped face completely, but she _knows_ that her eyes were wider and her lips less upturned than they’re supposed to be.)

At least that settles the issue of whether she’s really being McCarthy’d in the middle of the Oscars red carpet. And really, she has to give the guy props for his inventiveness. Even as she quickly looks away, she’s almost happy for his success (which definitely has nothing to do with the way he grinned when he got the shot, because she definitely _doesn’t_ think his smile might be even nicer than his nose).

“Gorgeous! Stunning!”

“Over here, directly at me!”

“Loving the look. Can you give me a sexy smile?”

“What are your thoughts on the Syrian refugee crisis? Follow up question: should Selena Gomez get a haircut?”

 _Smize_ , Amy reminds herself sternly. He will not get her with random absurdist statements. She is an Academy Award-nominated actress, and she will not break.

Her so carefully trained lips, however, don’t seem to want to get with the program. She has to get off this carpet; it’s hot and she’s hungry and she’s clearly developing Stockholm Syndrome due to Red Carpet Emotional Repression. She stares straight ahead and struggles to maintain her expression (50% smolder, 30% gratitude, 20% earnestness).

“Right at me, babe, that’s it!”

“Can you show us some more leg, hon?”

“Yes, fantastic. You’re the hottest girl here!”

“Will you go on a date with my uncle? He’s thirteen and thinks grapefruit is just a fancy way of saying grapes. Blink twice for yes.”

 _Fight it, Santiago_ , but it’s too late, it’s too hard, she can’t help it, she can feel the smile tugging at the corners of her lips—

“Love it! Sexy smile!”

“Amy, this way!”

“Look over here!”

“Has anyone ever told you you look like a young George Lazenby?”

She breaks. She can’t help it. She smiles, god help her, a real smile, and when she locks eyes with the guy, eyes drawn to his like magnets, she _giggles_. He gets a photo. He actually gets a few. He’s grinning right back at her, and maybe it’s the no-blood-in-her-feet/sun-on-her-head/not-quite-a-person-at-this-point delirium setting in, but she actually feels like he’s glad to have made her laugh, not just glad to have gotten his shot.

Amy’s publicist touches her elbow, which, in publicist lingo, is practically dragging her away by her hair. She goes.

She gets two minutes of the best human shield her publicist and a couple of her stylist’s interns can provide in order to “compose herself,” which mostly means checking her twitter, wondering where Rosa got off to (probably inside already, Amy thinks, envying her take-no-shit red carpet efficiency), and thinking wistfully about the mini Snickers bar she managed to cram into her clutch. Maybe once she gets inside, and if she’s really careful not to get any chocolate on the dress—

“C’mon, time to keep moving,” her publicist says, ushering her forward.

The next section of the carpet, at least, is less flashy in the literal sense, with a few dozen bloggers and print journalists crammed into a pen and holding out microphones. This sort of thing? Nobody can throw Amy off her game. Every carefully rehearsed answer requires 20% thoughtfulness, 30% quotability, and 50% charm, which she provides with ease. And then, miracle of miracles, it’s finally time to head inside the theater.

“Excuse me! Excuse me—sorry—I have to—”

Amy turns, despite her publicist’s rapid headshake and attempt to hurry her along. It’s the (definitely not remotely cute, she reminds herself) guy coming towards her, holding something out like he’s trying to hand it to her, except now a couple of security guys are converging on him, trying to herd him off the red carpet.

“Sir, I’m going to need you to step off—”

“No, you don’t get it,” the guy says. Amy can’t really see him behind the security guys now. “I have her phone, I—”

Wait, what? Amy fumbles to open her clutch: all that’s in there is the Snickers bar, her lipstick, and a crumpled tissue (ostensibly in case she gets emotional during the ceremony, really because her mother instilled in her a belief that if she didn’t carry Kleenex around at all times the world would go to ruin).

The point is, her phone is missing.

“Wait, wait!” she says, running to the security guys—well, it’s more of a quick trot, considering her footwear, and she can hear her publicist making a strangled noise of protest behind her. “It’s okay, he’s fine—”

One of the security guards seems to recognize her, and he jerks his head at the other two and they all retreat by a couple of inches so Amy can get through. The guy looks relieved to see her, if not still a bit annoyed at the manhandling.

“You dropped your phone,” he says, handing it to her.

“Oh my god, thank you,” she says, “I had no idea I’d even— You’re a lifesaver.”

Automatically, she’s turning on the screen even as she’s babbling, checking to see if—what, it’s really hers? If she’s received any emergency texts from the President since she had it last? But the sight of her familiar home screen (a close-up of one of her quilts) reminds Amy that she hasn’t re-enabled the passcode setting since she let her little nephew play with the phone last week. Which means, in theory, that this random guy had full access to her pictures and her contacts and everything else between when he picked up her phone and when he came surging up the red carpet with his white knight routine.

Amy’s not any more proud of her paranoia than she is of her incessant need to please, but it’s not like she doesn’t have good reason to be paranoid. There’s been a spree of people hacking into actresses’ phones, looking for credit card info or nude pictures to post online. Also, this guy, however cute he may (or _may not_ , come on, Amy) be, is a paparazzo. Which Amy knows well to be one of the least scrupulous careers in the world, right after tyrannical dictator.

She stuffs the phone back into her clutch and snaps it shut, because for some reason that makes her feel safer, even if this possible hack was of the most old fashioned kind. Mentally, she’s running through every possible piece of data on her phone she wouldn’t want getting out into the world, trying to prepare for the worst. She doesn’t have nudes, because, again, she is paranoid as fuck. But, okay, there are some photos where she’s _pretty close_ to naked, and some embarrassingly unflattering drunk photos, and some of her and her ex-boyfriend, the guy she dated before the asshole ex, and there are some text messages that…

The paparazzo is kind of giving her a funny look.

“Thank you very much,” she says, shoulders back, warm-but-not-too-warm tone, movie star smile (dazzling but unapproachable). “I appreciate it.”

She offers her hand to shake. He takes it.

“And don’t you forget it,” he says, finger gunning.

She blinks.

 _And don’t you forget it_ was the catch phrase—well, running joke, really—of Dora, her first-ever regular TV role.

“You’ve seen _Beatdown Boulevard_?” she says, unable to hide her incredulity. _Nobody_ saw _Beatdown Boulevard_. They only filmed thirteen episodes, three of which never aired, before being unceremoniously canceled by the network. Which sucked, because in Amy’s opinion—and not even in a biased way—the show was amazing, intelligent, offbeat, and hilarious. It was also watched by approximately three people, which might have been their downfall. (Of course, _Beatdown Boulevard_ being cancelled had freed her for her next TV gig, on a show which was both a critical and commercial success and made her a household name and in turn paved the way for her move into film. So she theoretically shouldn’t complain, but at least a small part of her is still pretty bitter.)

“Oh yeah,” the guy says, grinning, “I’m the guy who watched your show.”

She laughs, once more unable to help it. What’s wrong with her today? What’s happening to her years of media training, the power pose lessons that taught her to maintain her composure at all times?

“Are you a big Ray Holt fan?” she asks, because that’s generally the safe bet with _Beatdown Boulevard_. Whatever viewers they _did_ have they owed almost entirely to the presence of Holt in the main cast, the only person attached to the show who had even a modicum of prestige and name recognition going in.

“Sure,” the guy says. “He’s amazing in it, but I didn’t really know his stuff beforehand. Honestly, Dora was my favorite character.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. I quote her almond-themed St. Crispin’s Day speech all the time. Nobody ever has any idea what I’m talking about.”

She smiles, but—“Wait, that never even aired. It was in the second-to-last episode. How’d you see it?”

“Uh.” He ducks his head a little, looking slightly caught out but also covering it with a smirk. “I might have some connections that I pestered to get me the unaired episodes.”

“Ooh, sneaky. Very impressive.”

They’re just sort of—standing there grinning at each other, like a couple of idiots, when Amy’s publicist sidles up to her and says, pointedly, “We should head inside, the late crowd is coming in.” (She’s also muttering something about how on earth the interns didn’t notice that Amy had dropped her phone, which isn’t really fair; she figures she must have dropped it when she went to put it back in her clutch and not noticed, which is hardly anyone’s fault but her own.)

“Well, thank you,” Amy says, giving the guy a smile—a _real_ smile, not one of her rehearsed ones, because something about this guy is just rendering all her years of preparation obsolete. He smiles back, and she’s _sure_ he’s about to say _And don’t you forget it_ , but her publicist really means business this time, and ushers her down the carpet and into the theater without even giving her a chance to see where the guy ended up. Which sucks, because somewhere along the line her brain got tired of struggling against the fact of his cuteness and outsourced the decision to…other areas of her body, which shot right past _attractive_ and settled on _kind of really smoking hot_.

 

Amy really needs a cigarette.

 _It’s an honor just to be nominated_ , she tells herself, a mantra. _Especially against such incredibly talented women_.

It _is_. It really is. She knows that.

But she also wants to win.

That’s not how this works, and she knows that. Hers was a surprise nomination, a signal to the industry that she’s one to watch. Her nomination was intended to round out the ballot after the women in actual contention were all accounted for, a nod from the Academy to prove that they’re hip to the up-and-comers, that they watch indie films, that they care about female-led projects (whether true or not). Her being nominated is the prequel, maybe, to a win a few years down the line, maybe even in the Best Actress category if she plays her cards right. That’s all it is.

But she can’t help it. She wants to win.

And it can suck, sometimes, being this competitive, because it means that she _is_ getting her hopes up when she shouldn’t, and it means she feels jealous towards women she really, really admires, and it means that right now, she really needs a fucking cigarette.

It’s only when she gets out to the lobby that she realizes what an impossibility that is. The place is swarming with people, publicists and photographers and producers, and there’s already a line for the women’s bathroom, and every outdoor exit leads only to _more_ people. But she can’t turn and go right back to her seat, not yet; she needs to pull herself together, and there’s still too much time before her category is up for her to stew in anxiety.

Instead, she ducks down a hallway that looks relatively dark and deserted. She leans back against the wall once she’s far enough to be out of sight of the people in the lobby, closes her eyes, takes deep, calming breaths.

Maybe Gina is right about the level of Amy’s thirst. For shame cigarettes, for success, for—okay, fine—sex. She just needs to get it…under control. _Control yourself, Santiago. That’s your thing, remember? You’re a control freak_. _Get it together._

“Hey, are you okay?”

Amy opens her eyes. It’s Kind Of Really Smoking Hot Guy.

“Hi,” she says, but she doesn’t straighten up from the wall, because she has the intense feeling that if she does she might throw up or something. She clears her throat. “Um, I’m fine.”

“Okay,” the guy says, but he doesn’t really look like he believes her. “Sorry, I don’t mean to make it seem like I’m stalking you or anything, I just—you looked upset? And I saw you coming in here, and I wondered—well. Just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m fine,” she repeats, then adds: “Just, uh, a little nervous.”

He laughs. Amy actually does raise her head from the wall for that, because, seriously? He’s _laughing_ at her?

“I’m sorry,” the guy says, schooling his expression into something a bit more serious, although not by much. “I just find that hard to believe.”

She wrinkles her brows at him.

“You’re just so good in the movie,” he clarifies. “I mean, you’re the best part, hands down.”

“Seriously?” she says, because that really just sounds like something her anxiety-riddled brain would come up with to try to soothe her in one of her recurring Failure Nightmares.

“Definitely,” he says, and _this_ smile is surprisingly…soft. “And it’s not just me who thinks so—my friend Gina said that if you didn’t get nominated she was going to burn the Kodak to the ground. And she’s psycho, so she probably would have.”

(Briefly, Amy wonders if Jake’s friend Gina is the same Gina as Amy’s “friend” Gina (who insists on the air quotes), but she dismisses the thought, because while threatening arson sounds plausible, openly praising Amy doesn’t.)

“Well, thank you,” she says, genuinely meaning it. “That’s very nice, ah…”

“Jake,” he supplies.

“Amy,” she says, even though he obviously already knows that.

They shake hands for the second time that day, although this time they’re in much closer quarters, in a darkened hallway, as alone as is possible at the Academy Awards ceremony. Amy’s heart rate, which slowed to a healthier rhythm after Jake’s approach, picks up speed again. She clears her throat a little.

“Um,” she says, tucking her hair behind both ears at the same time (as somewhere far away her hairstylist starts to cry). Almost unconsciously, she turns her body in his direction, leaning just one shoulder against the wall to face him. He mirrors her.

“What was your favorite part?” she asks, and then immediately regrets it, steeling herself for the inevitable answer—or at the very least, the awkward pause as Jake tries to think of a scene _other_ than the inevitable answer. At least six guys she knows to varying degrees—as well as a good number of paparazzi and an entire fleet of Internet commenters—have made no secret of their favorite scene, and it’s the one where she’s topless. It makes total sense for the plot, it wasn’t in any way exploitative, and you don’t even see _that much_ , all reasons why Amy agreed to do it. But no amount of reasoning in the world could stop gross guys from being gross and enjoying—

“The scene where you shoot that guy in the face,” Jake says, without a second of hesitation, and Amy can’t help herself: she kisses him.

It might be more accurate to say she _attacks_ him. She yanks him forward by the lapels of his suit and smashes her lips to his, artless, headlong, _hungry_. He is still against her for a second—only a second, and then, with a guttural growl that travels all the way up and down Amy’s body and settles somewhere low in her abdomen, he kisses back.

His tongue is in her mouth, her hands are in his hair, self-control is out the window completely. He bites down on her lower lip, and she gasps; he swallows it. It’s all she can to do to try and catalogue all the ways in which their bodies move against each other at any given moment. His hand is on the nape of her neck. Now his arms are cinching her waist, pulling her as tight as humanly possible, flush against his body, close enough to hurt. And now his hands are traveling up her back, pressing between her shoulder blades, encouraging her to rise further on her tiptoes (the towering heels kicked to the side, forgotten). Her legs slot between his, and he presses her against the wall, hard, so that she feels the wood grain beneath her skin.

Somewhere, she remembers hazily, there is an awards show going on, something to do with acting, something she’s supposed to be involved in in some way, but this, this, _this_ —this is more than every shame cigarette she has ever smoked, this is standing under Niagara Falls and letting the water pound down, letting it pummel her, letting it swallow her whole. At once, this is incredible relief and a renewed thirst, an insatiable hunger. Jake moves against her, pulling her away from the wall and walking her backwards, deeper into the shadows. They don’t stop kissing, sloppy and desperate, with teeth and tongue and little gasps and moans lost in the vacuum between them.

Amy feels a door handle against her hip. She fumbles for it, pushes the door open with her ass, basically. Whatever the room is, it’s dark, and they stumble into it, separating only enough for him to start kissing her neck.

She moans, not bothering to muffle it this time. Whatever part of her was busy cataloging body parts has left the building, surrendering to the onslaught of sensation. Whatever part of her is in charge of policing the kind of things Amy Santiago Does and Does Not do, including but not limited to hooking up with a hot stranger backstage at the Academy Awards, never even showed up to work today. Jake the paparazzo sucks at _that spot_ on her neck in a way that she knows is going to leave a bruise and Amy the Oscar-nominated actress tangles her fingers in his hair and breathes, “Fuck.”

“It’s Jake,” he says against her lips, she can _feel_ him grinning, and it’s such a stupid joke she wants to hit him, but instead she kisses him. It’s another attack disguised as a kiss: she presses her advantage, presses _him_ against the wall, slips her fingers beneath his waistband and feels the hitch in his breath. She smiles. She unbuckles his belt without looking at it, lets it drop to the floor. Her lips are on his neck, and they tingle with the reverberation of his groan. He puts both hands on her ass to bring her in closer; she goes willingly.

Some distant, not-quite-as-desperate part of her brain registers a couple of things while the rest of her is busy leaning her forehead against Jake’s and grinding against his erection as he practically pants into her mouth: One, this is a coat room, albeit a mostly-empty one. Two, this coat room must be directly adjacent to the theater or something, because more so than in the hallway, she can actually hear the sounds of the ceremony, thunderous applause followed by muffled speeches. If she concentrates, which she’s not now particularly inclined to do, she can even make out distinct words and recognize voices—for instance, she’s pretty sure J.K. Simmons just said something about a fourth _Kung Fu Panda_ movie.

And then Jake flips the script, pushing _her_ against the wall again, pushing his way back into her mouth, pushing his hands up her thighs, and Amy forgets the coat room and J.K. Simmons and even her own name.

Easily, as though she weighs nothing, Jake picks her up, pinning her between the wall and his body. She wraps her legs around him, tight like a vice, holding him close. She’s suddenly very grateful for the thigh-high slit in her dress, the silky fabric pushed up far enough to allow Jake easy access to get his hands on her ass and _squeeze._ She grinds down on him, enjoying the noise he makes in response. Her panties are already fully soaked-through; she feels like she’s going to burst, like there’s a gaping void inside her in danger of collapsing in on itself, supernova, if she doesn’t get him inside her _now_.

“Fuck me,” she breathes in his ear, punctuating the request by biting down on his earlobe. He almost drops her, and she laughs, tightening her thigh muscles to help her stay in place, grateful also for the months of yoga she’s done to prepare her for this night, if not quite in _this_ way.

“You sure?” he murmurs, and because she can’t exactly take him in hand from this position, she brings his mouth to hers instead, coaxing his tongue into her mouth, letting him fuck her with it, showing him just how much she wants him.

The kiss turns greedy, desperate, unfocused: he kisses her like a dying man gasps for breath, and she responds in kind, letting her animal instinct take over, fully letting go of the Amy Santiago who has equations and preparations for every occasion. He fumbles a bit, trying to hold her in place while simultaneously getting his pants undone, and she helps as much as she can, kissing his jaw and chin and neck and every bit of skin she can reach. (Okay, so she might be more of a hindrance than a help; sue her.)

Then all at once he’s kissing her again, and she feels him pushing inside her, opening her up, all the way in, deeper than she would’ve thought it was possible to go. It occurs to her that he has all the leverage here, with the solid wall and the ineluctable force of gravity and his own impressive strength. She thinks of the invisible bookshelf she has at home, the way it looks like her books are stuck to the wall without anything holding them up—and it occurs to her that she must look much the same, that even with the wall behind her back and Jake’s hand on her hip she is mostly being held up by his cock inside her. The thought hits her just as Jake’s third thrust finds her g-spot; she cries out, unable to help herself.

Amy clings to him as she continues to thrust, in and out, driving her into the wall hard enough to cause the coat hangers to rattle around them. She can’t remember the last time she’s been fucked like this, deep and rough and thorough. It’s like he’s smashing through every defense she so carefully maintains, breaching every part of her, the necessary cure to the hours she’s spent crafting an image that keeps everyone she encounters at arm’s-length. This is the opposite of arm’s length. His thrusts are getting faster, messier, and she begins to feel like she was made just for this, to wrap herself around him and just _take_ him.

She’s making noises she doesn’t even fully register. Her face is tucked into his shoulder as her climax builds and builds inside her, and then she comes, explosions and fireworks and waves breaking on a shore, the whole nine yards of visual euphemisms that only exist because there’s no earthly way to describe _this feeling_ , like the universe is beginning and ending all at once. She bites down on his shoulder (which lost the suit jacket but kept the shirt), not so much because she’s trying to muffle herself but because she has to bite down on _something_. She comes back to herself just as he comes, finishing with one final thrust that part of her addled mind believes may have her nailed to the wall for good.

It doesn’t, of course, and Amy’s feet find solid ground again—although she feels like an astronaut just returned to earth, unsteady and still imagining herself floating. The noise from the theater is truly otherworldy: applause and the sound of Patricia Arquette’s voice filter into the room as they try to pull themselves together, Jake zipping up his pants and Amy trying to remember crucial details, like what happened to her shoes and what her name is.

“Amy Santiago,” Jake says. For a moment of total disorientation she thinks he has succeeded in actually reading her thoughts, but when she looks up at him he looks puzzled, like he’s straining to hear something. “Are…are they calling your name?”

She listens too. Yes, that’s Patricia Arquette, and yes—

“Oh my god,” she whispers; Jake hisses “Fuck!” at the same time.

Amy scrabbles for the door; Jake lunges to the handle and wrenches it open, and together they tumble into the hall.

She loses him as she sprints down the hallway, shoes forgotten, following the sound of Patricia Arquette’s voice: “And the winner is…Amy Santiago!”

 

She gets away with it. Somehow, she gets away with dashing into the theater and down the aisle while everyone applauds for her, her face flush and her shoes missing and her hair in god knows what sort of state. She doesn’t remember anything she says at the podium, but she sees the video later; her first line was, “Sorry about that, I was having an anxiety attack backstage and lost track of time.” The audience laughs and applauds, and in the car on the way to the first after-party her publicist informs her that the “Twitterverse” has already proclaimed her the new face of the mental health awareness movement. She would feel guilty about that, but it’s true she _was_ having an anxiety attack, anyway, even if she had help with the “losing track of time” part.

He’s in the press room when she comes off stage, looking none the worse for wear except for the lipstick stain on his collar. She turns red at that, which is definitely going to make for some unflattering photographs considering the color of her dress, but she can’t quite bring herself to mind.

The next day she gets a grammatically unsound text that begins _Hope it’s okay I asked Gina for your number_ and ends with _The Oscars are like Christmas for us poor starving photogs, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to sell this one_. The photo he’s attached is a close-up of her on the red carpet, looking directly into the camera and laughing. A different photo of ends up on the cover of People a few days later, but the smiley-face emoji she sends Jake in response, she thinks, is the truer smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Because I'm a sap who can't let PWP just be what it's meant to be, I have an elaborate headcanon that Jake is a struggling photographer just paparazzing to pay the bills, and that later he and Amy go on a date ~~and have more sex~~ and Jake gets a job in animation and she wins another Oscar and they live happily ever after and it all started because they had sex in a coat room at the Oscars okay thank you goodbye.
> 
> Comments are _hugely_ appreciated. And feel free to come say hi to me on [tumblr](http://rubbishyrubbishyrubbish.tumblr.com)! ♥
> 
> EDIT: Now with bonus [comment fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5158454?show_comments=true#comments)!


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